Small Victories

Very small victory for some, biggish for me. I finally made it the full two miles while jogging. No stopping. No walking. There were times when my jogging was VERY slow, especially when going uphill. But, it was jogging nonetheless.

I think I could have made it that first time I tried but I just kinda gave up. It got uncomfortable, not unbearable, but I still stopped. There were several times on today's run when my mind gave up, but my legs kept going until my mind could catch up. I didn't stop. And, while I know two miles is not that far, today I will celebrate my whole two miles. Maybe next week I will celebrate 2.5 miles.

Maybe not.

Confusion

The Woodster gets his manhood lopped off tomorrow. Poor guy doesn't know what he is in for! {M}, do you have any ideas on how it feels to get your manhood snipped? Tug doesn't.

I have to take him to the vet between 8:30 and 9. Tug has an early morning meeting so I also have to take the kids with me. I am thinking that is a bit early.
I wonder if he will be sent home with a cone. We saw UP this weekend and apparently cones are dedogmanizing.

We loved the movie!

Where a kid can be a kid

I think that is the slogan. {l} decided she wanted to go to Chuck E. Cheese's for her birthday so we headed over there yesterday with a few friends.
The girl in the background with {l} is her 'best friend'. The day these two met the friend told her mom "Can we have a sleep over, she is my very best friend" then looked back at {l} and said "What's your name again?" The one in the forefront is a friend from judo.This is best friend's sister, conveniently {r}'s best friend.
And here is their brother and mom. I guess I didn't get a picture of their other, older sister. {s} did not appreciate ANY of the rides. I am pretty sure this was {j}'s first time at CEC. They didn't have one near us in Oregon. He was going crazy. He LOVED it!
"YES, I WINNED!"

Her day

My mom called early this morning. WAY to early. She said, "Let me talk to my girl." I replied, "She is asleep. It is 6 in the morning. We are all asleep, crazy lady!" She was calling to wish 'her girl' a happy birthday. That girl is the oldest child, (now) 9 year old Lauren. And, while I don't want my mom (or anyone else for that matter) calling my house so early, I do want to wish Lauren a happy birthday.

HAPPPYYYYYY BIRTHHHHDAYYYYY!!

Getting Serious

That there is my log. My nutrition/exercise log. Time to get down to the nitty gritty. I hadn't wanted to do a low carb diet initially (I have always considered doing it later, once time gets closer to my anniversary ~ so maybe mid-September), but I don't do well just exercising and eating whatever I want. So now I am going to write it all down. I found a nutritional counter online and decided I will do the following:

I am planning on continuing my running training. I think I will go ahead and start a 10k training program. I can't jog a full 3 miles but I can certainly walk/jog 3 miles so if I increase my mileage maybe I will eventually be able to consecutively jog more. Plus, if I get serious with the food then I will lose weight and the jogging will be easier! I am also planning on incorporating swimming into my cardio. I figure triathletes look to be in pretty good shape so if I jog/swim/bike then maybe I will get in good shape too. I am hoping to do some sort of combo of 2 things per day for at least 1.5 hours, 6 days per week.

Scratch that. I am not hoping to, I WILL do 1.5 hours of cardio, 6 days per week.

WoW-ten

Ugh and double ugh. This week was terrible. I didn't even try to be good. I ate like a cow. I exercised twice and that is all. I did about 20 minutes of one of the P90X videos (it was an hour long video) and was sore for 3 days. Yeah, those videos are to get in better shape, not for the faint of heart!

On Monday the kids started their gymnastics clinics so it was back to the Y. I got on the treadmill for 30 minutes ~ why did I spend 2 months building up a cardio base that got depleted in a week. It was so hard to jog a mile, but I did it. Tuesday too.

I had some Dr Pepper this week - real thing, not diet. I ended up throwing a cup away because it was way too filling.

I am having little resolve with food, but am getting back into the exercise. Why is it all so hard?!?

STATS:

Regina: +3

Renee:

Amy: -1.9

Laura: 0

Sarah: 0

Keri: +2

Paula: -3

Getting Nailed

Those who know me in real life know that I am a nail biter. Total nail biter. Have been doing it as long as I can remember. There have been times (usually when taking prenatal vitamins) that my nails might start to get long, but by weeks end they are short again thanks to my teeth. Not now though.

Well la-di-da. Look at those babies. Maybe I should have freshly polished them before taking the picture. My right hand also has long nails, but not quite as long. I guess that hand grows slower??

I cut them (with clippers, not with teeth) shortly after taking this picture, they were making it hard to type.

Bedly comforts

Nightly conversation:

Me: Girls, time for bed.

Girls: Can we sleep together? (They have twin bunkbeds, yet like to sleep squished together on the top bunk)

Me: Fine, but the first time I hear any talking or laughing you have to separate.

Girls: Alright.

**they often end up separated**

New nightly conversation:

Me: Girls, time for bed.

Girls: Can we sleep together?

Me: Fine, but the first time I hear any talking or laughing you have to separate.

Girls: Alright.

{r}: Mom, if you are wondering what this noise is, I am pulling out the bottom bunk (it is a trundle) in case Woody wants to sleep on it.

I guess he understands English. . .

(those 2 huevos that are making my picture look ugly will be cut off later this week)

Fleshy holes

A long time ago Tug made a deal with {l} and  {r}; if {l} stopped biting her nails she could get her ears pierced and if {r} stopped sucking her thumb she could get hers pierced. {l} was successful much earlier than {r}. Today at {l}'s judo tournament {r} and Tug started talking about her deal (I wasn't at the tournament). We haven't seen her suck her thumb in a long time, but she hasn't asked to get them pierced so I thought she had lost interest. I think seeing her cousin get her ears pierced resparked {r}'s desire.  So today, once they returned from the tournament ({l} got silver, again) we went to get {r}s's hair cut and her ears pierced. She has been wanting to grow her hair out but I like it better short so I threw that last bit of a bribe in there. . .get your hair cut and you can get your ears pierced.
Unlike their cousin, our Claire's does not allow you to take pictures during piercing. They would have been boring anyway. . . she didn't even flinch ~ not one blink of pain!

Milestones

Our niece is now double digits!!

Plus One

Please help us welcome a new addition to the family. I didn't want another one. Tug has been pretty gung ho about another one for quite a bit. {j} is glad to have another boy in the family. That's right, it's a boy. And for those who have known me for a long time, he looks a lot like his long lost brother Drake.

We drove 2 hours today, each way, just to take a looksy. For those who know either Tug or me you know what a looksy means. It means a buy-sy. We of course had to bring him home.

We think he is about a year and a half. He is a rescue dog (from the pound in another county) and while he looks all lab, we aren't sure.

So far he is awesome. SOOOOOO well behaved. He was being fostered so we were able to see him at someone's home and he did great with the kids. They were able to stick their hands in his mouth trying to get his ball without any problems.

When I set his food out I was shoving my hands in his mouth and taking the food bowl away and he just sat there until I gave it back to him.

I ate dinner on the living room floor to test him. He came over but I moved him away and told him to sit/lay which he did and left me alone to eat my dinner. I even put a cheeseburger right up to his nose. He sniffed and slowly opened his mouth, I told him no and pushed his head away. He just laid his head back down and didn't try to go for it again.

We aren't sure if he is housebroken but so far so good. We will see how tonight goes. 

I hope the honeymoon doesn't end!!

His name was Sam but since he hasn't been at the pound that long (so we are figuring he hasn't had the name that long) we decided to change it. He is now Woodrow, aka Woody. 

WoW-nine

I tried a little trick this morning. When I got on the scale I sucked in, exhaled all air and stood very still. It didn't work. I have been trying to get the house cleaned and organized (spent all of Monday in just one room-kids don't have classes at the Y this week) and I have used that as an excuse to not exercise (haven't since Saturday). I also used Tug's birthday as an excuse to eat a lot yesterday. Back on the South Beach narrow today and will give P90X a go in a little while.

STATS:

Regina: +1

Renee: 0

Amy:

Laura: 0

Sarah: -2

Keri: 0

Paula: 0

Michelle:

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday, baby. 

Oh, I love you so. . . 

16 (plus lots more) candles make a lovely light . . .

That's all I know of the song. I love you Tuggie poo, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!

Lord help me

I think I have met my ultimate demise, and I haven't even started yet.  A long time ago, while Tug was working out of town in Oregon, he saw an informercial for P90X. He said he wanted to get it. I looked at the price and said "Sorry, Charlie" (side note, whenever I tell {j} sorry charlie he screams "My name is not Charlie. My name is {j}). 

Well thanks to those of you who use my Amazon click-thru (really pretty much just Jessica, thanks Jessica) I ordered it and only had to pay about $10 (from the cheap Amazon price, not full price). I am nervous!! I am pretty sure you have to do chin-ups. I can't do anything remotely close to a chin-up. I think I might be able to hang from the bar for about 2.2 seconds. And I am not meaning hang in the chin-up position, I mean straight armed. I will start tomorrow (since I kinda fell off South Beach yesterday and tomorrow is Tug's birthday but we might go out tonight since the girls have judo tomorrow so I must eat cake, right?)

I hope to be able to walk on Thursday!

Oh so close

Tug challenged me to a 2 mile jog today. I went first, he is out running now. I didn't make it. I just went and measured how long I was able to jog and it was 1.8 miles. Ugh, so close. I did jog some again after walking so in total it was probably right about 2 miles, but I was wanting to jog consecutively. It took about 25 minutes to do the 2 miles (with the walking). Why is jogging soooo hard??

Tug wins. He made it the full 2 miles in 21 minutes. I have been "training" for 2 months and, according to the training, should be able to run 3 miles but couldn't complete 2. He has not been training and just went out and ran further than me ~ ugh. Off to ice my knee. 

Just say no

I have heard before of a scam telemarketers do where they just try and get you to say yes at some point during your conversation then can splice up their recording to make it sound like you said yes to whatever crap they are selling. I make it a point to never say yes on the phone to telemarketers. Today I think I may have been signed up for a stupid extended warranty, what do you think:

ring, ring.

me: Hello.

bastard: Mrs. blahblah {important to know this is a real person, not automated}.

me: This is she (I never respond with a yes). 

bastard: A few weeks ago you received some crap in the mail that is totally bogus for an extended warranty on your vehicle. We noticed that you did not renew this fake warranty and wanted to give you an extra opportunity to let us steal your money. Would you like to renew your warranty?

me: No, we are not interested and could you please remove our name from your call list (learned this while doing telephone surveys, if someone ever specifically says 'remove my name/number from your call list' they legally must do so and not call you anymore). 

bastard: don't even know what he was saying. mumbling on about his warranty as if I had never said anything.

me: I said no we do not want that and remove our number from your call list. 

bastard: still going with his script as if I had never said anything.

me: Remove us from the call list.

bastard: warranty will be good for. . .

me: Are you deaf, I said no and take us off the call list.

bastard: Mrs. blahblah

me: Yes (damnit argh)

bastard: hangs up. 

Ugh, he caught me. The number he was calling from did not show up on caller ID and when I tried *69 it said it could not tell from where the last call came. I better not have been signed up on some scam!!

WoW-VIII

So, it has been 8 weeks since I really started with the whole exercise thing. Theoretically 2 months and the overall weight loss isn't as high as I had hoped. I decided to start South Beach last week to get things going. I hadn't wanted to do an actual diet. . . preferred the whole eat less, workout more approach. Unfortunately that approach didn't work too well for me!! I am comfortable/confident enough in my workouts now (meaning I am going to continue working out and not just rely on the diet) that I am fine doing a low carb thing. I did slow down a bit on my workouts this week~I did 45 min on the bike daily but hadn't done much running. I did do my treadmill workouts last Wed and Thurs, but hadn't the rest of the week. Last night I decided I would try (since I had only done 30 min on the elliptical earlier in the day) so while the girls were in gymnastics I went on the track at the Y. I walked 12 laps, jogged 14 laps then walked 2 more laps for cool down (14 laps = 1 mile) and it felt pretty good so maybe I will go back to 2 cardio workouts/day. 

STATS: 

Regina: -4 (total -5 but 1 pound was the gain from last week)

Renee: no scale

Amy: 

Laura: 

Sarah: no scale in the big move

Christine: 

Keri: -2 good job!

Paula: 0

Michelle: +5 BUT down a dress size, small victories!

Shhhhhhhhh

We're testing.

This dumb state makes you do standardized tests every single year. Annoying since I doubt they make public schoolers test yearly. (I could be wrong on that.) This is the first year we have done testing since Oregon doesn't require it yearly. Overall they thought it was pretty easy.

And with that I think we are done with school. Well, we do still have about 11 math lessons left. . .we will see if we get around to them. I clearly need to do more math with {r} though. I was a bit disturbed when I saw her drawing out circles to do the addition problems. So, for 50+20 = she drew out 20 little circles then counted them 51, 52, 53 etc all the way up to 70. Sure she got the right answer but I think she needs to figure out the whole add the 1s column, add the 10s column. She says I am the one who taught her to do it that way; I think she combined a couple lessons together because I know we did 1s column/10s column. . .not to mention she is doing 2nd grade math and this was a 1st grade test.

Off to send the tests back to Seton to be graded. I figure if I put 10 of my .37 stamps on it I should be golden since they are ancient these days anyway. Did you know the cost of stamps is going to go up EVERY May? That's what my mom says ~ she works for the PO. I need her retirement money though so you guys be sure to pony up!!

Been caught stealing, once, when I was 5

WoW-VII

I've given up. I exercise 6 days per week (doing 1 hr 15 min of cardio and arm weights) and though I don't eat great, I don't eat horrible all the time. Yet, no weight loss. Gained a pound actually. 

I don't want to start any blasphemous rumors but I think there is a design flaw here, God. If I work out hard and eat mildly decent I SHOULD LOSE WEIGHT. 

And, no, I haven't actually given up. I just now have to ::gasp:: really work on the food part of this whole thing. ugh. 

Stats:

Regina: +1

Renee:

Amy:

Laura: 0

Sarah: 

Christine: +2

Keri: 0

Paula: 0

Michelle: 0